Amazing video encyclopedia

Skating

Popular in this category (8)

Ice skating is the act of motion by wearer of the ice skates to propel the participant across a sheet of ice. This can be done for a variety of reasons, including exercise, leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared ice surfaces, both indoors and outdoors, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water, such as ponds, lakes and rivers.

Roller skating is the traveling on surfaces with roller skates. It is a form of recreational activity as well as a sport, and can also be a form of transportation. Skates generally come in three basic varieties: quad roller skates, inline skates or blades and tri-skates, though some have experimented with a single-wheeled "quintessence skate" or other variations on the basic skate design. In America, this hobby was most popular first between 1935 and the early 1960s and then in the 1970s, when polyurethane wheels were created and disco music oriented roller rinks were the rage and then again in the 1990s when in-line outdoor roller skating, thanks to the improvement made to inline roller skates in 1981 by Scott Olson, took hold.

Inline skating is a multi-disciplinary sport practiced widely internationally. Inline skates typically have 2 to 5 polyurethane wheels, arranged in a single line by a metal or plastic frame on the underside of a boot. The in-line design allows for greater speed than roller skates and better manoeuvrability. Following this basic design principle, inline skates can be modified to varying degrees to accommodate niche disciplines.

Inline speed skating is the roller sport of racing on inline skates, or as they are commonly called, rollerblades. It is often called inline racing by participants. Although it primarily evolved from racing on traditional roller skates, the sport is similar enough to ice speed skating that many competitors are now known to switch between inline and ice speed skating according to the season.

Synchronized skating is a sport where 8–20 skaters skate together as one team. The team moves as a flowing unit at high speed while completing difficult footwork. Synchronized skating grew rapidly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and today there are approximately 600 synchronized skating teams in the United States.

Roller skiing is an off-snow equivalent to cross-country skiing. Roller skis have wheels on their ends and are used on a hard surface, to emulate cross-country skiing. The skiing techniques used are very similar to techniques used in cross-country skiing on snow.

Roller sports are sports that use human powered vehicles which use rolling either by gravity or various pushing techniques. Typically ball bearings and polyurethane wheels are used for momentum and traction respectively, and attached to devices or vehicles that the roller puts his weight on. The international governing body is the International Roller Sports Federation (FIRS).